Deblocking filters are known to filter decoded video that has been coded by a block-based coding method such as MPEG-2 and other methods. MPEG-2 coding, for example includes coding in 8.times.8 pixel blocks and 16.times.16 pixel macroblocks. Blocking artifacts include the boundaries between the blocks and/or between macroblocks to be visible when playing decoded video. Deblocking filters filter decoded video at the pixel level to remove blocking artifacts prior to playback, and many such filters are known.
Other pixel-level video filtering also is known. For example, it is known to filter video at the pixel level prior to encoding to remove noise, so that, for example, the bit rate of the coded video can be lower than without the noise filtering.